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My husband and I finally got my father’s house totally cleaned out this weekend. My dad died in May last year and the final thing to do for the estate is to sell his house. We (my brothers and I) needed to empty it out first. I’ve slowly been cleaning it out. Piece by piece. Giving different things away, keeping things for myself, throwing other things away. The things in the house were all fairly new. He had the whole inside of the house redone in 2007, so memories cleaning out the inside of the house were only a few years old. The outside of the house has been a different thing.

Nothing on the outside of the house has changed in the 50 years my parents and then my father lived in the house other than getting siding put on in the 70s. Nothing had been changed but nothing had been maintained either. The grass was cut by my father growing up and then a company when he was too sick to do it anymore, but other than that, nothing was done. Bushes were overgrown, weeds were everywhere, piles of wood and rotted wood were all around the small property.

That has all been cleaned up. The house looks just like it did when we were kids. All three of my brothers have been there at different times to pick things up or to do some work on the yard. Each of them reminisces about different times growing up. I hear the stories, I see the house, I start to feel sad that it will soon be sold.

But I remember that my brothers and I are lucky. We all grew up together in the same house. We never had to move as kids. Never had to switch schools. My parents continued to live there after we all moved out so when we came home we really felt like we were HOME. I moved around the block from my parents in 1996 and was lucky enough to be with my mother a lot during her last year of life. My father lived there until last year when he died. We are lucky to have those 50 years of memories, not all good, but many happy ones also, to reminisce and laugh about with my brothers.

So I am starting to get used to the idea of someone else living there. I still live around the block and pass the house quite often.

I hope whoever buys it, enjoys it. It’s just a small house with a little fenced yard. It was much more to us. It was home.

My childhood home, looking in 2014 much as it did when my parents bought it in 1964.

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2 thoughts on “Home”

The house I live in with Mom is the one I grew up in. We’ve been here since 1979. I’ve lived on my own elsewhere quite a bit, but this has always been home, and I’m fairly sure now that I’ll never leave again. Having that sense of stability is a wonderful thing.